Mistakes.

For as long as we can remember, we’ve heard that everyone makes them. Furthermore, we’ve been taught to reap the lessons they bring and learn from them. Although these are both important statements to go on, I think our society today has overlooked one important part of making mistakes: owning up to them.

Too often we allow our past mistakes to haunt us, inhibiting us from moving forward in a positive direction. We play over the mistakes we’ve made over and over again, beating ourselves up for our careless ways or misguided decisions. We torture ourselves with the “if I had only” or the “if I just,” allowing our missteps to become our new paths. Things that happened years in the past can still slide through our thoughts, clouding our way into the new and better.

It’s time to accept that although we may not have liked the way we acted or the things we did, they happened. The only way to move forward from them and learn, as our “older-and-wisers” have told us to, is to take responsibility.

Yes, it happened.

No, it does not define you.

Yes, you will be better next time.

Responsibility is a scary thought for many of us—focusing fault on ourselves rather than others. (“I messed up? No, that’s messy… [Suzie] did!”) Ideally, we all like to remain fault-free and skate through life without the trial and tribulation piece, but we can’t truly grow that way. Responsibility is about challenging ourselves to be better, and challenging ourselves to take responsibility for our mistakes requires us to acknowledge that we were in the wrong.

People like to argue it isn’t that simple, but it truly is. Often times we confuse the judgement we receive after making a mistake with the mistake itself, but that isn’t where any judgement comes from. People will judge you for how you react to a mistake, how you get up after falling, rather than the fall itself. After all, like the saying goes-- everyone makes them.

So, we all have a choice. Harbor our mistakes until they embody us, allowing others and ourselves to pass judgments, or own it. Own up to the fact that you are not perfect. Own up to the fact that you are smart enough to recognize your wrongs. Own up to the fact that you plan to be better. If we all did a little more of that, making mistakes might not seem like such a scary thing.